For many University of Colorado students, the concept of creating positive social change around the world seems both a desirable and unreachable goal.

Yet thanks to a new class debuting next week in CU's Alliance for Technology, Learning and Society (ATLAS) center, students from a variety of campus disciplines will pool their knowledge to create music videos to further the causes of worldwide humanitarian organizations.

This fall's "World Music Video Project as Catalyst for Social Change" marks the first CU course organized under the ATLAS umbrella.

"This is completely different than anything else CU has ever offered," said Marissa Berlin, a 25-year-old graduate student who will serve as a teaching assistant for the course. "It's neat to be a part of that and see where it goes."

First conceived at the Conference on World Affairs, the course itself -- which was finalized too late in the summer to make it into CU's fall registration catalog -- will be taught by well-known CU graduate Don Grusin, a Grammy-winning jazz pianist.

"We have a multidisciplinary class made up of economists, broadcast journalists, film students, music students and marketing students, because we want to really understand the social relevance of what we're doing" Grusin said Wednesday. "I think it's best to look through a refractive lens to glean a more holistic perspective."

Teams of five to 10 students will be working with nonprofit organizations in Peru, Australia, Japan and -- through a group in San Francisco -- satellite locations in Ecuador, Bolivia, South Africa and India, Grusin said.

The project will utilize ATLAS technology to network with individuals who are working in those countries on humanitarian causes. The students will collaborate with them by trading music and video files as they learn more about what the organizations are trying to accomplish and the cultural aspects of regions they are in, Grusin said.

"Ultimately, we hope to contribute a collaborative music project that would accompany, underscore or superscore the video clips we are sent," Grusin said.

One participating agency is Child Family Heath International, a global health education organization based in San Francisco. The organization will forward video clips from representatives in countries throughout the world so the CU students can process the various bits into a more unified whole.

"We are very excited about the idea of professionals-in-the-making taking content that our student participants have supplied us and seeing what they can do in terms of shaping it into creative pieces," said David Tozer, Child Family Health's development and outreach manager. "From that, we should be able to raise our profile and share some promotional material with stakeholders and supporters."

Grusin, as well, placed emphasis on utilizing the outcome of these collaborations as a means to help promote the efforts of the organizations the CU students are working with.

"I would like to create something that we would use as a way to enhance interest in these areas," Grusin said. "Perhaps even attract additional support for them from non-governmental agencies and commercial organizations."